Manchester World Cup: Day 2 Report & Photos

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Great Britain’s Joanna Rowsell won Gold for her country during a long and entertaining day of competition at the Manchester Velodrome

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Manchester World Cup: Day 2 – Gold for Rowsell

RESULTS - click here for all three days on the one page

Day 2 saw Rowsell win the Women’s Pursuit with fellow Brit, 19 year old Katie Archibald third. There was another Bronze medal for GB when Becky James wearing the stripes of World champion beat the Olympic Champion Anna Meares (Australia) in the Women’s Sprint.

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Joanna Rowsell, Gold for Gb on day 2 with Katie Archibald third and Aussie  Rebecca Wiasak (left) second.

Jon Dibben meanwhile finished fifth overall for GB in the men’s omnium, Andy Tennant was 6th in the Men’s Individual Pursuit whilst World Champion Jason Kenny was 4th in the Men’s Keirin. Olympic champion Laura Trott meanwhile was sixth in the Women’s Omnium after three rounds. Owain Doull was 4th in the Mens Points.

Photo Album Day 2

Women’s Pursuit

It was great to see Joanna Rowsell on the top step of the podium to receive her Gold medal in the Women’s Pursuit along with Katie Archibald in third. Rowsell had qualified fastest a second ahead of Aussie Rebecca Wiasak and so those two met in the final for Gold whilst Archibald, only 19, was third fastest just ahead of Eugenia Bujak of Poland.

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Joanna Rowsell

The finals were close and exciting matches with the outcomes as expected based on qualifying. Poland’s Bujak tried the classic trick of trying to catch Archibald (a GB academy rider) by coming out all guns blazing but she died a death and Archibald came back in the final kilometre to win easily to get the bronze to add to the Silver from the Scratch race. In the Gold medal race, Rowsell was fastest all the way but the Aussie put up a great fight until the final kilo when Rowsell steamed ahead to take the Gold.

Rowsell said afterwards “I had a schedule to ride to, and I pretty much completely ignored it. Chris walks the line and the idea is he’s on the line if you’re on pace. I came round after my second lap and he was up in the banking, so I thought ‘oh dear, I’ve gone out too fast here’, which is absolutely fatal in a pursuit.

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Katie Archibald won another medal with 3rd

“I got myself through the ride, and I could hear the crowd screaming really loud so I thought it was probably a good sign, but you never know until you hear the gun go at the end that you’ve won it. That was a fantastic ride by Katie. She’s only 19, she’s at that age where she’s constantly improving. She’s a really exciting young rider, which is what we need now.”

Katie meanwhile, racing in the colours of Scotland, said “it wasn’t the plan to let her go up (four seconds at one point), but I was planning on trying to go out a bit slower and trying to squeeze through it rather than going out too hard and having to go back down again and then accelerate, which had happened in the qualifiers. I think I went marginally faster, so it seemed to pay off slightly, but it wasn’t good for my blood pressure to be honest!”

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Riding for Wales, Ciara Horne was 6th.

Men’s Points
Ireland’s Martyn Irvine won the men’s Points race in impressive style, sprinting to collect the deciding points at the finish, as Britain’s Owain Doull finished fourth.

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L-R: Hansen of Denmark, Irvine of Ireland and Viviani of Italy.

GB’s Doull, Gold in the Team Pursuit, was on course for a Silver medal when the wheels seemed to fall off his, and those of other riders, challenge in the finale. First Tour of Britain Stage winner Elia Viviani went on the rampage in the latter sprints to put himself in with a chance and then a three man break got away with eventual winner Martyn Irvine.

Nothing race leader Hansen of Denmark, Viviani or Doull could do was going to stop the break mopping up the majority of the points in the final third of the race. It looked at one point as though the break would lap the field, or what was left of it in a very brutal race where the face of the race leader Hansen, and that of the other riders, told the story of just how brutal it was.

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Owain Doull and Jon Mould

GB’s Doull had collected points throughout the sprints early on, putting himself into second place behind Hansen of Denmark. Doull, like so many others including Welsh rider Jon Mould, began to tire though towards the end and slipped into the bronze medal position with just two sprints to go.

Doull needed to beat Elia Viviani in the final sprint to retain his medal position but the Italian road sprinter out paced Doull pushing him down a place into fourth. “I was probably the laziest guy in the first half of the race” said Irvine afterwards “but I seem to rise to the top the nastier the race gets.

Women’s Sprint
In the women’s sprint, Germany’s Kristina Vogel – who lost to Becky James at this year’s World Championships final in Belarus, continued her dominant display of riding by winning the Gold medal in two straight heats against Lee of Hong Kong. Vogel had made the final for Gold after beating World Champion Becky James almost as comfortably as she beat Lee in the final for Gold.

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The battle betweem Meares and James was close, very close!

James had qualified sixth before easily seeing off Shi of China in the 1/8 finals before facing the giant of a rider, former BMXer Elis Ligtlee of Holland. James outmuscled the Dutch rider in two straight rides to set up a semi final match against Germany’s pocket rocket, Kristina Vogel. Having been beaten by Vogel, despite pushing the German harder than other rider in the race, James, much the younger, still managed to out battle the warrior from Australia, Anna Meares.

Lee from Hong Kong had earlier beaten Anna Meares, who is competing in her first major event since winning Olympic gold last year, in a very close semi-final which meant it was a Meares versus James Bronze medal final. Meares, with a very telling small message on her stem (“big picture Annie”) threw everything at James and despite her experience, the Aussie lost out after two photo finish matches.

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Vogel, eventual winner, was in a class of her own at Manchester.

Afterwards, James told BBC sport “I’m so chuffed. To have this many races today and to get a bronze medal, I’m really happy. In the semis, Kristina Vogel was just unbelievable, she was so strong and completely had the legs on me. I thought I had nothing to lose in the final so I just went up and raced as best as I possibly could.”

“I was mainly focusing on the tactics in the race. I wanted to get two solid races from both the front and the back. I went in focusing on the tactics and came out with the best outcome I could have, so I’m really happy with that.”

Jess Varnish meanwhile had qualified for the 1/8th final but was unlucky (based on qualifying times) to come up against Vogel in the quarters where she lost two nil and had to race the 5-8 final where she won the race to end the competition 5th.

Men’s Keirin

Wearing the stripes of World Champion and looking so dominant in the first two rounds, Jason Kenny was 4th in the final for Gold. Kenny’s win in the second round screamed ‘winner’ and even the celebration afterwards was the mark of man on form. It was though all a little premature and after a good position behind the derny in round 2, Kenny was at the back of the string for the final.

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Pervis of France wins the Keirin from Levy of Germany.

He was going to have to get to the front somehow but with a final packed full of equally fast riders, that challenge proved too much. Frenchman Pervis, who had been at the front until Germany’s Levy took up the running, had the perfect leadout and the experienced Frenchman out gunned the rest to take the win from Levy with Kenny in 4th.

“I was just a passenger” said Kenny afterwards. “ I had a few tiny opportunities and I just didn’t take them, at the end of the day. Every time I thought I was about to go, someone went half a rev earlier!” Lewis Oliva, riding for the Welsh Team USN trade team failed to make the second round despite some strong efforts in the first round and first round reps.

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Afer a second round win that looked easy, Kenny was favourite for the final but the cards never fell his way and he was fourth.

Men’s Omnium
GB’s Academy rider Jon Dibben, a Junior last year was fifth in the men’s omnium won by Belgium’s Jasper De Buyst.

Dibben was in seventh position after day one after a poor Elimination race and he came out on day two all guns blazing. He was fourth in the Individual Pursuit and then the Scratch race to move up to sixth overall.

The final event of the two day series of six rounds was the Kilometre where he completed the 1000 metres in a time many a sprinter would be proud of, a 1:04.563. That was good enough to see him finish a very respectable 5th overall, one place behind the World Champion Gate from New Zealand.

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“Overall, I would say I’m pleased with it” he said afterwards. “I got a couple of good times – two personal bests – in the individual pursuit and the flying lap. That was something I probably wasn’t expecting. The conditions have been quite good here, so overall I’m pretty pleased. There were just a couple of mistakes and a couple of areas, which I probably needed to work on anyway. I’ll go back and focus on them again.”

Other Events
Andy Tennant, Gold medal winner in the Team Pursuit and a former World Junior Champion in the Individual Pursuit event, was sixth in qualifying, his final place in the event. In the Women’s Omnium, Laura Trott finished the day in sixth place after three events and still very much in the hunt for the Gold medal.

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Laura Trott relaxed and happy in the GB pen between events at the world cup.

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Andy Tennant.

Results
Coming

 

 

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